Random Dozen -- the Wednesday meme

1. Have you ever been so lost that you were really afraid?  Yes. My husband, who likes to live his life off the beaten track, took us through some unfamiliar woods in an unfamiliar park in an unfamiliar state -- on what he deemed to be a shortcut. We had my (then) 75 year old mother with us and I was genuinely afraid that the authorities would have to launch a helicopter search to find us.

2. Have you ever been to an island?  Yes. I've been to Bermuda and I've been to Catalina Island off the coast of California.  (We love that place!)

3. Are you more of a thinker or feeler?  I think I am equally thinker and feeler, and the context of the situation will tip it one way or the other.

4. Do you tend to see issues or situations in life as black and white or shades of gray?  Shades of gray. Oft times that's where you find mercy.

5. If you were stuck on an island, what book would you hope to have with you (Let's pretend the Bible is already there, so you can't say that.)  David Copperfield, which is my all-time favorite.

6. What are you most afraid of?  Depends on when.  I might be most afraid of something that one of my kids is about to do, or I might be most afraid of the hornet that showed up in my bathroom when I was about to take a shower.

7. Would you rather lose all of your old memories or never be able to make new ones? I've spent the longest time on this question, and I just can't decide.  Without the old memories, you lose context and the sweetness and comfort of what you know. Whereas the inability to make new memories means you're forever living in the past.

8. Pretend I'm looking at a scrapbook page about you. There are three spaces for you to drop in individual pictures. What are those pictures of, and why did you select them?  1) The family photograph taken last summer -- all 21 of us!  2) A photograph of #7 and his Dad, taken when #7 was about 4 years old -- my "two best guys," as I usually refer to them; 3) A photograph of my mother, my daughter and myself, taken the first year that my mother flew out to visit us after we moved West. Three generations.  We don't look a thing alike (really!), and that's part of the charm.

9. If you were re-doing your wedding, what would you do differently? (If you're single, tell me one thing you would do if you were planning a wedding OR huge party.)  I don't think I'd change a thing. It was a happy and fun day for everyone, and also a very relaxed day. I might have purchased a different dress - a little fancier -- but that would be about it. All the kids stood up with us when we said our vows, we sang a favorite hymn, had an enormous family party -- and that's exactly what we wanted.

10. Tell me one thing you know/believe about forgiveness. Just one? I've got more than one. But, okay, here's one: if you don't really know and accept God's forgiveness in your own life (for your own sins), you are not capable of extending it to anyone else.

11. You're waiting in a doctor's office. What is your favorite way to pass that time?  Read a good book that I brought with me.

12. If there were a clone of you in a parallel universe what is one way you hope she/he would be the same as you and one way you hope she/he would be better?  The same: I hope she is as loyal as I am. Better: I hope she forgives more easily than I do when she is deeply hurt.